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CHRISTMAS DAY 



BY . 

CHARLES KINGSLEY 





BOSTON 
D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY 

FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS 



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Copyright, 1886, 

by 

D. LoTHROP & Company. 




CHURCHI LL* 
BOSTON, 




CHRISTMAS DAY. 



How will it dawn, the coming Christmas day ? 
A northern Christmas, such as painters love. 
And kinsfolk, shaking hands but once a year. 
And dames who tell old legends by the fire ? 
Red sun, blue sky, white snow, and pearled ice, 
Keen ringing air, which sets the blood on fire, 
And makes the old man merry with the young. 
Through the short sunshine, through the longer night ? 



6 CHRISTMAS DAY. 

What 'tis to be a man : to curb and spurn 

The tyrant in us : that ignobler self 

Which boasts, not loathes, its likeness to the brute, 

And owns no good save ease, no ill save pain, 

No purpose, save its share in that wild war 

In which, through countless ages, living things 

Compete in internecine greed. — Ah God ! 

Are we as creeping things which have no Lord ? 

That we are brutes, great God, we know too well : 

Apes daintier-featured ; silly birds, who flaunt 

Their plumes, unheeding of the fowler's step ; 

Spiders, who catch with paper, not with webs ; 

Tigers who slay with cannon and sharp steel. 

Instead of teeth and claws ; — all these we are. 

Are we no more than these, save in degree ? 

No more than these ; and born but to compete, — 

To envy and devour, like beast or herb ; 

Mere fools of nature, puppets of strong lusts. 



CHRISTMAS DAY. 9 

Taking the sword, to perish with the sword 

Upon the universal battlefield, 

Even as the things upon the moor outside ? 

The heath eats up green grass and delicate flowers, 

The pine eats up the heath, the grub the pine. 

The finch the grub, the hawk the silly finch ; 

And man, the mightiest of all beasts of prey, 

Eats what he lists ; — the strong eat up the weak, 

The many eat the few ; great nations, small ; 

And he who cometh in the name of all 

Shall, greediest triumph by the greed of all ; 

And, armed by his own victims, eat up all ; 

While ever out of the eternal Heavens 

Looks patient down the great magnanimous God, 

Who, Maker of all worlds, did sacrifice 

All to Himself. Nay, but Himself to one ; 

Who taught mankind on that first Christmas day. 

What 'twas to be a man ; to give, not take ; 



lO CHRISTMAS DAY. 

Or southern Christmas, dark and dank with mist, 
And heavy with the scent of steaming leaves, 
And rosebuds moldering on the dripping porch ; 
One twilight, without rise or set of sun. 
Till beetles drone along the hollow lane, 
And round the leafless hawthorns, flitting bats 
Hawk the pale moths of winter ? Welcome then. 
At best, the flying gleam, the flying shower, 
The rainpools glittering on the long white roads, 
And shadows sweeping on from down to down 
Before the salt Atlantic gale : yet come 
In whatsoever garb, or gay, or sad. 
Come fair, come foul, 'twill still be Christmas day. 
How will it dawn, the coming Christmas day ? 
To sailors lounging on the lonely deck 
Beneath the rushing trade-wind ? Or to him. 
Who by some noisome harbor of the East, 
Watches swart arms roll down the precious bales, 




THE FLYING GLEAM, THE FLYING SHOWER. 



12 



CHRISTMAS DAY. 



Spoils of the tropic forests ; year by year ■ L 

Amid the din of heathen voices, oTOwine: 'V-^ - -^^V 

Himself half heathen ? How to those, 
brave hearts ! 

Who toil with laden loins and sink- 
ing stride 

Beside the bitter wells of 
tieeless sand' 




Toward the peaks 
which flood the ancient Nile, 
7.f- To free a tyrant's captives ? How 
- to those — 



CHRISTMAS DAY. I 3 

New patriarchs of the new-found underworld — 

Who stand, Hke Jacob, on the virgin lawns. 

And count their flocks' increase ? To them that day 

Shall dawn in glory, and solstitial blaze 

Of full midsummer sun : to them that morn 

Gay flowers beneath their feet, gay birds aloft 

Shall tell of naught but summer : but to them, 

Ere yet, unwarned by carol or by chime, 

They spring into the saddle, thrills may come 

From that great heart of Christendom which beats 

Round all the worlds ; and gracious thoughts of youth ; 

Of steadfast folk, who worship God at home ; 

Of wise words learnt beside their mothers' knee ; 

Of innocent faces, upturned once again 

In awe and joy to listen to the tale 

Of God made man, and in a manger laid : 

May soften, purify, and raise the soul 

From selfish cares, and growing lust of gain, 



14 



CHRISTMAS DAY. 




And phantoms of this dream, 
which some call life, 

Toward the eternal facts ; for 
here or there, 

Summer or winter, 'twill be 
Christmas day 

Blest day, which aye reminds 
us, year by year, 



CHRISTMAS DAY. 1 5. 

To serve, not rule ; to nourish, not devour ; 

To help, not crush ; if need, to die, not live. 

Oh, blessed day, which givest the eternal lie 

To self, and sense, and all the brute within ; 

Oh, come to us, amid this war of life ; 

To hall and hovel, come ; to all who toil 

In senate, shop, or study ; and to those 

Who, sundered by the wastes of half a world. 

Ill-warned, and sorely tempted, ever face 

Nature's brute powers and men unmanned to brutes. 

Come to them, blest and blessing, Christmas day. 

Tell them once more the tale of Bethlehem ; 

The kneeling shepherds, and the Babe Divine ; 

And keep them men indeed, fair Christmas day. 




XI 






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